Lower prices for mobile phones and an improved economic outlook sent global mobile phone shipments soaring by 20% last year, hitting a record-breaking 516.3 million units, a market research study shows.
The previous record of 435 million manufactured handsets was set in 2000, Britain-based research firm Strategy Analytics said in the study. In 2002 some 429.2 million handsets were shipped.
'Falling wholesale prices, increasing retail handset subsidies, innovation and improving global macro-economic conditions have driven sales growth sharply higher worldwide, particularly in the second half of the year,' it noted.
US-based Gartner, another major firm researching international mobile phone sales, said that according to its preliminary figures the overall mobile handset market may have exceeded 510 million units in 2003.
Nokia continued to lead the pack but saw its market share drop by 0.3 percentage points to 34.8% last year. The company made some 179.8 million handsets in total, up from 150.6 million the previous year, the research firm said.
This was more than twice as much as the number two on the list, US-based Motorola, which produced 75.1 million units last year, up from 70.2 million in 2002, while its part of the overall handset volume dropped from 16.3 to 14.5%.
Number three was South Korean company Samsung, which saw its sales increase from 42.2 million to 55.7 million handsets, at the same time boosting its global handset market share by a percentage point to 10.8%. German company Siemens increased its part of global sales by 0.2 percentage points to 8.4%, at the same time improving sales by 8 million handsets to 43.3 million.
As replacement sales are picking up in Europe, where customers have been upgrading their old handsets with new ones featuring colour screens and built-in cameras, the researchers expect a new record for the handset market in 2004. Gartner said it believed the handset market would reach 560 million units this year.
